Theme: Reinventing Lives

The twenty first century is a rapidly developing era. Innovating new methods is not enough for this fast growing age. Rethinking and seeing the world through a different lens has been the way of making lives better. Every community developed their own ways to cope with the rapid changes. Different societies found new ways and methods derived from the basic knowledge they had to reshape their living. These TED talks will bring out people who innovated new methods and reshaped the core methods to develop and modify their lifestyle.

Khorog State University
M41 Khorog
Khorog, Gorno-Badakhshan (ru), Kŭhistoni Badakhshon (tg), 736000
Tajikistan

Abdullo Kurbanov

Co-founder of Alif Bank, Tajikistan

Abdullo Kurbanov is Co-founder of Alif Bank, a neobank with focus on retail Islamic finance, in-house banking technology, education and youth. With a team of over 1100 people, Alif Bank is based in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and is currently expanding to Pakistan and the UAE. He is also co-founder of somon.tj, which is currently the most popular website on Tajik internet, as well as Peshraft, a public organization that supports young leaders through various stipend programs. Previously, Mr. Kurbanov served as Deputy Chairman of the Board of Orienbank, one of the largest commercial banks in Tajikistan. Prior to that, he was the Vice President of Mining Investments at Origo Partners PLC, a UK-based private equity company investing primarily in Mongolia and China. Earlier, he was based in London working as an analyst in the Metals & Mining team of UBS Investment Bank, a Swiss global investment bank. He has also worked for Oliver Wyman (financial consulting) in London and Moscow.

Dr. Sultonbek Aksakolov

Assistant Professor of History at UCA

Dr. Sultonbek Aksakolov is a history faculty member at the School of Arts and Sciences (SAS) at the University of Central Asia (UCA). At the SAS, UCA he has also served as the Academic Lead, and as the Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at the UCA. His research is focused on the history of Islam in Soviet Central Asia, and intellectual history, and heritages of the region. He received his Ph.D in History from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London in 2014. Previously, he has served as a consultant with the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation, Tajikistan. He has published on the history of religion, education, mobility, and development issues in Central Asia. Currently, he is preparing his monograph on Religion in Soviet Badakhshan, which analyses the Soviet state archives on religion.

Kris Lizak

Country Representative of Geres Tajikistan

Mr. Kris Lizak is a country representative for Geres in Tajikistan. He has worked in humanitarian response and development in Pakistan, Syria, Ukraine and Nepal, beginning his work in the sector from a tiny project in Badakhshan over a decade ago. The ideas nurtured while he walked from Feyzabad in Afghanistan to Murghab in Tajikistan, encountering countless inspiring people on my way. In-between the missions, he joined his family to run a dairy farm in a rural area of Poland, deploying sustainable methods of construction and low-tech energy solutions. The farm offers organic produce, especially long-maturing cheeses from the milk of our herd of goats. Also, he holds a diploma in Finance from the University of Economics in Krakow, Poland. After a short career in banking he has pursued post-graduate research at scientific institutes in Vienna and Geneva, exploring innovative financial solutions to the risk of natural catastrophes.

Malika Giles

Khorog Urban Resilience Program Manager, AKAH Tajikistan

Malika Giles belongs to London, United Kingdom but spent more than half of her life serving different communities. She joined the AKDN in 2014, with UCA’s Academic Affairs Team in Bishkek. At that time, University construction was in the final stages, and Malika valued the opportunity to be part of a historical milestone for the region. In 2016, she moved to AKAH Afghanistan, working with the Central Asia Team in Communications and Partnerships, and moving between Kabul, Dushanbe and Khorog. She started working with Aga Khan Agency for Habitat, Tajikistan in 2016. She took a break in 2018 for a year and she has been serving the community of Khorog as the manager of KURP project since 2020.